Timeline of cryptography
Encyclopedia
BCE
- 36th century - The SumerianSumerian languageSumerian is the language of ancient Sumer, which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism...
s develop cuneiformCuneiform scriptCuneiform script )) is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs...
writing and the Egyptians develop hieroglyphicEgyptian hieroglyphsEgyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
writing. - 16th century - The Phoenicians develop an alphabetPhoenician alphabetThe Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...
- 600-500 - Hebrew scholars make use of simple monoalphabetic substitution ciphers (such as the Atbash cipher)
- c. 400 - Spartan use of scytaleScytaleIn cryptography, a scytale is a tool used to perform a transposition cipher, consisting of a cylinder with a strip of parchment wound around it on which is written a message...
(alleged) - c. 400 - HerodotusHerodotusHerodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
reports use of steganographySteganographySteganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity...
in reports to GreeceGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
from Persia (tattooTattooA tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
on shaved head) - 100-1 CE - Notable Roman ciphers such as the Caesar cipherCaesar cipherIn cryptography, a Caesar cipher, also known as a Caesar's cipher, the shift cipher, Caesar's code or Caesar shift, is one of the simplest and most widely known encryption techniques. It is a type of substitution cipher in which each letter in the plaintext is replaced by a letter some fixed number...
.
1 - 1799 CE
- 801–873 CE - CryptanalysisCryptanalysisCryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information, without access to the secret information that is normally required to do so. Typically, this involves knowing how the system works and finding a secret key...
and frequency analysis leading to techniques for breaking monoalphabetic substitution ciphers are developed in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages by the Muslim mathematician, Al-Kigndi (Alkindus), who may have been inspired by textual analysis of the Qur'anQur'anThe Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
. He also covers methods of enciphermentsCipherIn cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...
, cryptanalysis of certain encipherments, and statisticalStatisticsStatistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
analysis of letters and letter combinations in ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
. - 1355-1418 - Ahmad al-QalqashandiAhmad al-QalqashandiShihab al-Din abu 'l-Abbas Ahmad ben Ali ben Ahmad Abd Allah al-Qalqashandi was a medieval Egyptian writer and mathematician born in a village in the Nile Delta. He is the author of Subh al-a 'sha, a fourteen volume encyclopedia in Arabic, which included a section on cryptology...
writes Subh al-a 'sha, a 14-volume encyclopedia including a section on cryptology, attributed to Taj ad-Din Ali ibn ad-Duraihim ben Muhammad ath-Tha 'alibi al-Mausili (1312–1361). The list of cipherCipherIn cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...
s in this work include both substitutionSubstitution cipherIn cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encryption by which units of plaintext are replaced with ciphertext according to a regular system; the "units" may be single letters , pairs of letters, triplets of letters, mixtures of the above, and so forth...
and transpositionTransposition cipherIn cryptography, a transposition cipher is a method of encryption by which the positions held by units of plaintext are shifted according to a regular system, so that the ciphertext constitutes a permutation of the plaintext. That is, the order of the units is changed...
, and for the first time, a cipher with multiple substitutions for each plaintextPlaintextIn cryptography, plaintext is information a sender wishes to transmit to a receiver. Cleartext is often used as a synonym. Before the computer era, plaintext most commonly meant message text in the language of the communicating parties....
letter. It also included an exposition on and worked example of cryptanalysis, including the use of tables of letter frequenciesLetter frequenciesThe frequency of letters in text has often been studied for use in cryptography, and frequency analysis in particular. No exact letter frequency distribution underlies a given language, since all writers write slightly differently. Linotype machines sorted the letters' frequencies as etaoin shrdlu...
and sets of letters which cannot occur together in one word. - 1450 - The Chinese develop wooden block movable typeMovable typeMovable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....
printing. - 1450-1520 - The Voynich manuscriptVoynich manuscriptThe Voynich manuscript, described as "the world's most mysterious manuscript", is a work which dates to the early 15th century, possibly from northern Italy. It is named after the book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who purchased it in 1912....
, an example of a possibly encoded illustrated book, is written. - 1466 - Leon Battista Alberti invents polyalphabetic cipherPolyalphabetic cipherA polyalphabetic cipher is any cipher based on substitution, using multiple substitution alphabets. The Vigenère cipher is probably the best-known example of a polyalphabetic cipher, though it is a simplified special case...
, also first known mechanical cipher machine - 1518 - Johannes TrithemiusJohannes TrithemiusJohannes Trithemius , born Johann Heidenberg, was a German abbot, lexicographer, historian, cryptographer, polymath and occultist who had an influence on later occultism. The name by which he is more commonly known is derived from his native town of Trittenheim on the Mosel in Germany.-Life:He...
' book on cryptology - 1553 - Bellaso invents Vigenère cipherVigenère cipherThe Vigenère cipher is a method of encrypting alphabetic text by using a series of different Caesar ciphers based on the letters of a keyword. It is a simple form of polyalphabetic substitution....
- 1585 - Vigenère's book on ciphers
- 1586 - Cryptanalysis used by spymasterSpymasterA spymaster is a ring leader of a spy ring, run by a secret service.-Historical spymasters:*Dai Li *Francis Walsingham *James Jesus Angleton *Joseph Peters...
Sir Francis WalsinghamFrancis WalsinghamSir Francis Walsingham was Principal Secretary to Elizabeth I of England from 1573 until 1590, and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster". Walsingham is frequently cited as one of the earliest practitioners of modern intelligence methods both for espionage and for domestic security...
to implicate Mary, Queen of Scots, in the Babington PlotBabington PlotThe Babington Plot was a Catholic plot in 1586 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, a Protestant, and put Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic, on the English throne. It led to the execution of Mary. The long-term goal was an invasion by the Spanish forces of King Philip II and the Catholic league in...
to murder Elizabeth I of EnglandElizabeth I of EnglandElizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
. Queen Mary was eventually executed. - 1641 - Wilkins' Mercury (English book on cryptology)
- 1793 - Claude Chappe establishes the first long-distance semaphore telegraph line
- 1795 - Thomas JeffersonThomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
invents the Jefferson diskJefferson diskThe Jefferson disk, or wheel cypher as Jefferson named it, also known as the Bazeries Cylinder, is a cipher system using a set of wheels or disks, each with the 26 letters of the alphabet arranged around their edge. The order of the letters is different for each disk and is usually scrambled in...
cipher, reinvented over 100 years later by Etienne BazeriesÉtienne BazeriesÉtienne Bazeries was a French military cryptanalyst active between 1890 and the First World War. He is best known for developing the "Bazeries Cylinder", an improved version of Thomas Jefferson's cipher cylinder. It was later refined into the US Army M-94 cipher device. Historian David Kahn...
1800-1899
- 1809-14 George ScovellGeorge ScovellGeneral Sir George Scovell was a member of the quartermaster's staff of the British Army in Iberia during the Peninsular War.-Military career:Scovell was commissioned as cornet and adjutant in the 4th Queen's Own Dragoons in 1798....
's work on Napoleonic ciphers during the Peninsular WarPeninsular WarThe Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its... - 1831 - Joseph HenryJoseph HenryJoseph Henry was an American scientist who served as the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as a founding member of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor of the Smithsonian Institution. During his lifetime, he was highly regarded...
proposes and builds an electric telegraph - 1835 - Samuel Morse develops the Morse codeMorse codeMorse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
- 1854 - WheatstoneWheatstoneWheatstone may refer to:* Charles Wheatstone , a British scientist and inventor, eponymous for Wheatstone bridge* Wheatstone bridge, a measuring instrument in electricity* Wheatstone, New Zealand, a locality in the Canterbury region...
invents Playfair cipherPlayfair cipherThe Playfair cipher or Playfair square is a manual symmetric encryption technique and was the first literal digraph substitution cipher. The scheme was invented in 1854 by Charles Wheatstone, but bears the name of Lord Playfair who promoted the use of the cipher.The technique encrypts pairs of... - c. 1854 - Babbage's method for breaking polyalphabetic ciphers (pub 1863 by Kasiski)
- 1855 - For the English side in Crimean WarCrimean WarThe Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
, Charles BabbageCharles BabbageCharles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
broke Vigenère's autokey cipher (the 'unbreakable cipher' of the time) as well as the much weaker cipher that is called Vigenère cipherVigenère cipherThe Vigenère cipher is a method of encrypting alphabetic text by using a series of different Caesar ciphers based on the letters of a keyword. It is a simple form of polyalphabetic substitution....
today. Due to secrecy it was also discovered and attributed somewhat later to the Prussian Friedrich Kasiski. - 1883 - Auguste KerckhoffsAuguste KerckhoffsAuguste Kerckhoffs was a Dutch linguist and cryptographer who was professor of languages at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris in the late 19th century....
' La Cryptographie militare published, containing his celebrated laws of cryptographyKerckhoffs' principleIn cryptography, Kerckhoffs's principle was stated by Auguste Kerckhoffs in the 19th century: A cryptosystem should be secure even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge.Kerckhoffs's principle was reformulated by Claude Shannon as... - 1885 - Beale ciphersBeale ciphersThe Beale ciphers are a set of three ciphertexts, one of which allegedly states the location of a buried treasure of gold, silver and jewels estimated to be worth over USD$63 million as of September, 2011. The other two ciphertexts allegedly describe the content of the treasure, and list the names...
published - 1894 - The Dreyfus AffairDreyfus AffairThe Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
in FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
involves the use of cryptography, and its misuse, in regard to false documents.
1900 - 1949
- c 1915 - William Friedman applies statisticsStatisticsStatistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
to cryptanalysis (coincidence counting, etc.) - 1917 - Gilbert VernamGilbert VernamGilbert Sandford Vernam was an AT&T Bell Labs engineer who, in 1917, invented the stream cipher and later co-invented the one-time pad cipher. Vernam proposed a teleprinter cipher in which a previously-prepared key, kept on paper tape, is combined character by character with the plaintext message...
develops first practical implementation of a teletype cipher, now known as a stream cipherStream cipherIn cryptography, a stream cipher is a symmetric key cipher where plaintext digits are combined with a pseudorandom cipher digit stream . In a stream cipher the plaintext digits are encrypted one at a time, and the transformation of successive digits varies during the encryption...
and, later, with Joseph MauborgneJoseph MauborgneIn the history of cryptography, Joseph Oswald Mauborgne co-invented the one-time pad with Gilbert Vernam of Bell Labs. In 1914 he published the first recorded solution of the Playfair cipher...
the one-time padOne-time padIn cryptography, the one-time pad is a type of encryption, which has been proven to be impossible to crack if used correctly. Each bit or character from the plaintext is encrypted by a modular addition with a bit or character from a secret random key of the same length as the plaintext, resulting... - 1917 - Zimmermann telegramZimmermann TelegramThe Zimmermann Telegram was a 1917 diplomatic proposal from the German Empire to Mexico to make war against the United States. The proposal was caught by the British before it could get to Mexico. The revelation angered the Americans and led in part to a U.S...
intercepted and decrypted, advancing U.S. entry into World War IWorld War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918... - 1919 - Weimar Germany Foreign Office adopts (a manual) one-time pad for some traffic
- 1919 - Edward HebernEdward HebernEdward Hugh Hebern was an early inventor of rotor machines, devices for encryption.-Background:Edward Hugh Hebern was born in Streator, Illinois on April 23, 1869. His parents were Charles and Rosanna Hebern. They met in Harris County, Texas while Charles was serving as guard and escort from the...
invents/patents first rotor machine design—Damm, Scherbius and Koch follow with patents the same year - 1921 - Washington Naval ConferenceWashington Naval ConferenceThe Washington Naval Conference also called the Washington Arms Conference, was a military conference called by President Warren G. Harding and held in Washington from 12 November 1921 to 6 February 1922. Conducted outside the auspices of the League of Nations, it was attended by nine nations...
- U.S. negotiating team aided by decryption of JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese diplomatic telegrams - c. 1924 - MI8 (Herbert YardleyHerbert YardleyHerbert Osborne Yardley was an American cryptologist best known for his book The American Black Chamber . The title of the book refers to the Cipher Bureau, the cryptographic organization of which Yardley was the founder and head...
, et al.) provide breaks of assorted traffic in support of US position at Washington Naval ConferenceWashington Naval ConferenceThe Washington Naval Conference also called the Washington Arms Conference, was a military conference called by President Warren G. Harding and held in Washington from 12 November 1921 to 6 February 1922. Conducted outside the auspices of the League of Nations, it was attended by nine nations... - c. 1932 - first break of German Army EnigmaEnigma machineAn Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
by Marian RejewskiMarian RejewskiMarian Adam Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who in 1932 solved the plugboard-equipped Enigma machine, the main cipher device used by Germany...
in Poland - 1929 - United States Secretary of StateUnited States Secretary of StateThe United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Henry L. StimsonHenry L. StimsonHenry Lewis Stimson was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican Party politician and spokesman on foreign policy. He twice served as Secretary of War 1911–1913 under Republican William Howard Taft and 1940–1945, under Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the latter role he was a leading hawk...
shuts down State Department cryptanalysis "Black Chamber", saying "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." - 1931 - The American Black Chamber by Herbert O. Yardley is published, revealing much about American cryptography
- 1940 - Break of Japan's PURPLEPURPLEIn the history of cryptography, 97-shiki ōbun inji-ki or Angōki Taipu-B , codenamed Purple by the United States, was a diplomatic cryptographic machine used by the Japanese Foreign Office just before and during World War II...
machine cipher by SISSignals Intelligence ServiceThe Signals Intelligence Service was the United States Army codebreaking division, headquartered at Arlington Hall. It was a part of the Signal Corps so secret that outside the office of the Chief Signal officer, it did not officially exist. William Friedman began the division with three "junior...
team - December 7, 1941 - attack on Pearl HarborAttack on Pearl HarborThe attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
; U.S. Navy base at Pearl Habor in OahuOahuOahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
is surprised by Japanese attack, despite U.S. breaking of Japanese codes. U.S. enters World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis... - June 1942 - Battle of MidwayBattle of MidwayThe Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...
where U.S. partial break into Dec 41 edition of JN-25JN-25The vulnerability of Japanese naval codes and ciphers was crucial to the conduct of World War II, and had an important influence on foreign relations between Japan and the west in the years leading up to the war as well...
leads to turning-point victory over Japan - April 1943 - Admiral Yamamoto, architect of Pearl Harbor attack, is assassinated by U.S. forces who know his itinerary from decoded messages
- April 1943 - Max NewmanMax NewmanMaxwell Herman Alexander "Max" Newman, FRS was a British mathematician and codebreaker.-Pre–World War II:Max Newman was born Maxwell Neumann in Chelsea, London, England, on 7 February 1897...
, Wynn-Williams, and their team (including Alan TuringAlan TuringAlan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...
) at the secret Government Code and Cypher School ('Station X'), Bletchley ParkBletchley ParkBletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
, Bletchley, England, complete the "Heath Robinson". This is a specialized machine for cipher-breaking, not a general-purpose calculator or computer. - December 1943 - The Colossus computerColossus computerNot to be confused with the fictional computer of the same name in the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project.Colossus was the world's first electronic, digital, programmable computer. Colossus and its successors were used by British codebreakers to help read encrypted German messages during World War II...
was built, by Thomas Flowers at The Post Office Research Laboratories in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, to crack the German Lorenz cipherLorenz cipherThe Lorenz SZ40, SZ42A and SZ42B were German rotor cipher machines used by the German Army during World War II. They were developed by C. Lorenz AG in Berlin. They implemented a Vernam stream cipher...
(SZ42). Colossus was used at Bletchley Park during World War II - as a successor to April's 'Robinson's. Although 10 were eventually built, unfortunately they were destroyed immediately after they had finished their work - it was so advanced that there was to be no possibility of its design falling into the wrong hands. - 1944 - Patent application filed on SIGABASIGABAIn the history of cryptography, the ECM Mark II was a cipher machine used by the United States for message encryption from World War II until the 1950s...
code machine used by U.S. in World War II. Kept secret, it finally issues in 2001 - 1946 - VENONA's first break into Soviet espionage traffic from early 1940s
- 1948 - Claude Shannon writes a paper that establishes the mathematical basis of information theoryInformation theoryInformation theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...
- 1949 - Shannon's Communication Theory of Secrecy SystemsCommunication Theory of Secrecy SystemsCommunication Theory of Secrecy Systems is a paper published in 1949 by Claude Shannon discussing cryptography from the viewpoint of information theory. It is one of the foundational treatments of modern cryptography...
published in Bell Labs Technical Journal
1950 - 1999
- 1951 - U.S. National Security AgencyNational Security AgencyThe National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
founded. KL-7KL-7The TSEC/KL-7, code named ADONIS and POLLUX, was an off-line non-reciprocal rotor encryption machine. The KL-7 had eight rotors to encrypt the text, seven of which moved in a complex pattern, controlled by notched rings. The non-moving rotor was in fourth from the left of the stack. The encrypted...
rotor machine introduced sometime thereafter. - 1957 - First production order for KW-26KW-26The TSEC/KW-26, code named ROMULUS, was an encryption system used by the U.S. Government and, later, by NATO countries. It was developed in the 1950s by the National Security Agency to secure fixed teleprinter circuits that operated 24 hours a day...
electronic encryption system. - 1964 - David Kahn's The Codebreakers is published.
- August 1964 - Gulf of Tonkin IncidentGulf of Tonkin IncidentThe Gulf of Tonkin Incident, or the USS Maddox Incident, are the names given to two incidents, one fabricated, involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin...
leads U.S. into Vietnam WarVietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, possibly due to misinterpretation of signals intelligence by NSA. - 1968 - John Anthony WalkerJohn Anthony WalkerJohn Anthony Walker, Jr. is a former United States Navy Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985, at the height of the Cold War...
walks into the Soviet UnionSoviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
's embassy in Washington and sells information on KL-7KL-7The TSEC/KL-7, code named ADONIS and POLLUX, was an off-line non-reciprocal rotor encryption machine. The KL-7 had eight rotors to encrypt the text, seven of which moved in a complex pattern, controlled by notched rings. The non-moving rotor was in fourth from the left of the stack. The encrypted...
cipher machine. The Walker spy ring operates until 1985. - 1969 - The first hosts of ARPANETARPANETThe Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
, Internet's ancestor, are connected. - 1970 - Using quantum states to encode information is first proposed: Stephen WiesnerStephen WiesnerStephen J. Wiesner is a research physicist currently living in Israel. As a graduate student at Columbia University in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he discovered several of the most important ideas in quantum information theory, including quantum money , quantum multiplexing...
invents conjugate codingConjugate codingConjugate coding is a cryptographic tool, introduced by Stephen Wiesner in the sixties. Because its publication has been surprisingly rejected, it was developed to the world of public-key cryptography in the eighties as Oblivious Transfer, first by Rabin and then by Even.It is used in the field of...
and applies it to design “money physically impossible to counterfeit” (still technologically unfeasible today). - 1974? - Horst FeistelHorst FeistelHorst Feistel was a German-born cryptographer who worked on the design of ciphers at IBM, initiating research that would culminate in the development of the Data Encryption Standard in the 1970s....
develops Feistel network block cipher design. - 1976 - The Data Encryption StandardData Encryption StandardThe Data Encryption Standard is a block cipher that uses shared secret encryption. It was selected by the National Bureau of Standards as an official Federal Information Processing Standard for the United States in 1976 and which has subsequently enjoyed widespread use internationally. It is...
published as an official Federal Information Processing StandardFederal Information Processing StandardA Federal Information Processing Standard is a publicly announced standardization developed by the United States federal government for use in computer systems by all non-military government agencies and by government contractors, when properly invoked and tailored on a contract...
(FIPS) for the United States. - 1976 - Diffie and HellmanHellmanHellman is the surname of:* Danny Hellman , American illustrator and cartoonist nicknamed Dirty Danny* Frances Hellman, physicist at University of California, Berkeley* Geoffrey Hellman, philosopher* Jakob Hellman , Swedish pop singer...
publish New Directions in Cryptography. - 1977- RSA public key encryption invented.
- 1981 - Richard FeynmanRichard FeynmanRichard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
proposed quantum computers. The main application he had in mind was the simulation of quantum systems, but he also mentioned the possibility of solving other problems. - 1984 - Based on Stephen WiesnerStephen WiesnerStephen J. Wiesner is a research physicist currently living in Israel. As a graduate student at Columbia University in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he discovered several of the most important ideas in quantum information theory, including quantum money , quantum multiplexing...
's idea from 1970s, Charles BennettCharles H. Bennett (computer scientist)Charles H. Bennett is an IBM Fellow at IBM Research. Bennett's recent work at IBM has concentrated on a re-examination of the physical basis of information, applying quantum physics to the problems surrounding information exchange...
and Gilles BrassardGilles BrassardGilles Brassard was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1955. He received a Masters degree from the Université de Montréal in 1975, and obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University in 1979, working in the field of cryptography with John Hopcroft as his advisor...
design the first quantum cryptographyQuantum cryptographyQuantum key distribution uses quantum mechanics to guarantee secure communication. It enables two parties to produce a shared random secret key known only to them, which can then be used to encrypt and decrypt messages...
protocol, BB84BB84BB84 is a quantum key distribution scheme developed by Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard in 1984. It is the first quantum cryptography protocol. The protocol is provably secure, relying on the quantum property that information gain is only possible at the expense of disturbing the signal if the...
. - 1985 - Walker spy ring uncovered. Remaining KL-7's withdrawn from service.
- 1986 - After an increasing number of break-ins to government and corporate computers, United States Congress passes the Computer Fraud and Abuse ActComputer Fraud and Abuse ActThe Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is a law passed by the United States Congress in 1986, intended to reduce cracking of computer systems and to address federal computer-related offenses...
, which makes it a crime to break into computer systems. The law, however, does not cover juveniles. - 1988 - First optical chip developed, it uses light instead of electricity to increase processing speed.
- 1989 - Tim Berners-LeeTim Berners-LeeSir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
and Robert CailliauRobert CailliauRobert Cailliau , born 26 January 1947, is a Belgian informatics engineer and computer scientist who, together with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, developed the World Wide Web.-Biography:...
built the prototype system which became the World Wide WebWorld Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
at CERNCERNThe European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
. - 1989 - Quantum cryptographyQuantum cryptographyQuantum key distribution uses quantum mechanics to guarantee secure communication. It enables two parties to produce a shared random secret key known only to them, which can then be used to encrypt and decrypt messages...
experimentally demonstrated in a proof-of-the-principle experiment by Charles BennettCharles H. Bennett (computer scientist)Charles H. Bennett is an IBM Fellow at IBM Research. Bennett's recent work at IBM has concentrated on a re-examination of the physical basis of information, applying quantum physics to the problems surrounding information exchange...
et al. - 1991 - Phil ZimmermannPhil ZimmermannPhilip R. "Phil" Zimmermann Jr. is the creator of Pretty Good Privacy , the most widely used email encryption software in the world. He is also known for his work in VoIP encryption protocols, notably ZRTP and Zfone....
releases the public key encryption program PGPPretty Good PrivacyPretty Good Privacy is a data encryption and decryption computer program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is often used for signing, encrypting and decrypting texts, E-mails, files, directories and whole disk partitions to increase the security...
along with its source code, which quickly appears on the Internet. - 1992 - Release of the movie SneakersSneakers (film)Sneakers is a 1992 caper film directed by Phil Alden Robinson, written by Robinson, Walter F. Parkes, and Lawrence Lasker and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn...
, in which security experts are blackmailed into stealing a universal decoder for encryption systems. - 1994 - Bruce SchneierBruce SchneierBruce Schneier is an American cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer. He is the author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography, and is the founder and chief technology officer of BT Managed Security Solutions, formerly Counterpane Internet...
's Applied Cryptography is published. - 1994 - Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption protocol released by NetscapeNetscapeNetscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
. - 1994 - Peter ShorPeter ShorPeter Williston Shor is an American professor of applied mathematics at MIT, most famous for his work on quantum computation, in particular for devising Shor's algorithm, a quantum algorithm for factoring exponentially faster than the best currently-known algorithm running on a classical...
devises an algorithm which lets quantum computers determine the factorizationFactorizationIn mathematics, factorization or factoring is the decomposition of an object into a product of other objects, or factors, which when multiplied together give the original...
of large integers quickly. This is the first interesting problem for which quantum computers promise a significant speed-up, and it therefore generates a lot of interest in quantum computers. - 1994 - DNA computingDNA computingDNA computing is a form of computing which uses DNA, biochemistry and molecular biology, instead of the traditional silicon-based computer technologies. DNA computing, or, more generally, biomolecular computing, is a fast developing interdisciplinary area...
proof of concept on toy travelling salesman problemTravelling salesman problemThe travelling salesman problem is an NP-hard problem in combinatorial optimization studied in operations research and theoretical computer science. Given a list of cities and their pairwise distances, the task is to find the shortest possible tour that visits each city exactly once...
; a method for input/output still to be determined. - 1994 - Russian crackers siphon $10 million from CitibankCitibankCitibank, a major international bank, is the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York...
and transfer the money to bank accounts around the world. Vladimir LevinVladimir LevinЛевин, Владимир Леонидович is a Russian-born Jewish individual famed for his involvement in the attempt to fraudulently transfer US$10.7 million via Citibank's computers.- The commonly known story :...
, the 30-year-old ringleader, uses his work laptop after hours to transfer the funds to accounts in Finland and Israel. Levin stands trial in the United States and is sentenced to three years in prison. Authorities recover all but $400,000 of the stolen money. - 1994 - Formerly proprietary, but un-patented, RC4RC4In cryptography, RC4 is the most widely used software stream cipher and is used in popular protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer and WEP...
cipher algorithm is published on the Internet. - 1994 - First RSA Factoring ChallengeRSA Factoring ChallengeThe RSA Factoring Challenge was a challenge put forward by RSA Laboratories on March 18, 1991 to encourage research into computational number theory and the practical difficulty of factoring large integers and cracking RSA keys used in cryptography...
from 1977 is decrypted as The Magic Words are Squeamish OssifrageThe Magic Words are Squeamish OssifrageThe text "The Magic Words are Squeamish Ossifrage" was the solution to a challenge ciphertext posed by the inventors of the RSA cipher in 1977. The problem appeared in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. It was solved in 1993–1994 by a large joint computer...
. - 1995 - NSA publishes the SHA1 hash algorithm as part of its Digital Signature Standard.
- July 1997 - OpenPGP specification (RFC 2440) released
- 1997 - CiphersaberCipherSaberCipherSaber is a simple symmetric encryption protocol based on the RC4 stream cipher. Its goals are both technical and political: it gives reasonably strong protection of message confidentiality, yet it's designed to be simple enough that even novice programmers can memorize the algorithm and...
, an encryption system based on RC4 that is simple enough to be reconstructed from memory, is published on UsenetUsenetUsenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
. - October 1998 - Digital Millennium Copyright ActDigital Millennium Copyright ActThe Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
(DMCA) becomes law in U.S., criminalizing production and dissemination of technology that can circumvent technical measures taken to protect copyright. - October 1999 - DeCSSDeCSSDeCSS is a computer program capable of decrypting content on a commercially produced DVD video disc. Before the release of DeCSS, there was no way for computers running a Linux-based operating system to play video DVDs....
, a computer program capable of decrypting content on a DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, is published on the Internet.
2000 and beyond
- January 14, 2000 - U.S. Government announce restrictions on export of cryptographyExport of cryptographyThe export of cryptography in the United States is the transfer from the United States to another country of devices and technology related to cryptography....
are relaxed (although not removed). This allows many US companies to stop the long running process of having to create US and international copies of their software. - March 2000 - President of the United StatesPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Bill ClintonBill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
says he doesn't use e-mail to communicate with his daughter, Chelsea Clinton, at college because he doesn't think the medium is secure. - September 6, 2000 - RSA SecurityRSA SecurityRSA, the security division of EMC Corporation, is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, and maintains offices in Australia, Ireland, Israel, the United Kingdom, Singapore, India, China, Hong Kong and Japan....
Inc. released their RSA algorithm into the public domain, a few days in advance of their expiring. Following the relaxation of the U.S. government export restrictions, this removed one of the last barriers to the worldwide distribution of much software based on cryptographic systems - 2000 - UK Regulation of Investigatory Powers ActRegulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, regulating the powers of public bodies to carry out surveillance and investigation, and covering the interception of communications...
requires anyone to supply their cryptographic key to a duly authorized person on request - 2001 - Belgian Rijndael algorithm selected as the U.S. Advanced Encryption StandardAdvanced Encryption StandardAdvanced Encryption Standard is a specification for the encryption of electronic data. It has been adopted by the U.S. government and is now used worldwide. It supersedes DES...
(AES) after a five year public search process by National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) - 2001 - Scott Fluhrer, Itsik Mantin and Adi ShamirAdi ShamirAdi Shamir is an Israeli cryptographer. He is a co-inventor of the RSA algorithm , a co-inventor of the Feige–Fiat–Shamir identification scheme , one of the inventors of differential cryptanalysis and has made numerous contributions to the fields of cryptography and computer...
publish an attack on WiFiWIFIWIFI is a radio station broadcasting a brokered format. Licensed to Florence, New Jersey, USA, the station is currently operated by Florence Broadcasting Partners, LLC.This station was previously owned by Real Life Broadcasting...
's Wired Equivalent PrivacyWired Equivalent PrivacyWired Equivalent Privacy is a weak security algorithm for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. Introduced as part of the original 802.11 standard ratified in September 1999, its intention was to provide data confidentiality comparable to that of a traditional wired network...
security layer - September 11, 2001 - U.S. response to terrorist attacks hampered by lack of secure communicationsCommunication during the September 11, 2001 attacksCommunication problems and successes played an important role in the September 11, 2001 attacks and their aftermath.-Attackers:The organizers of the September 11, 2001 attacks apparently planned and coordinated their mission in face to face meetings and used little or no electronic communication...
- November 2001 - MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
and its allies vow to end "full disclosure" of security vulnerabilities by replacing it with "responsible" disclosure guidelinesResponsible disclosureResponsible disclosure is a computer security term describing a vulnerability disclosure model. It is like full disclosure, with the addition that all stakeholders agree to allow a period of time for the vulnerability to be patched before publishing the details. Developers of hardware and software... - 2002 - NESSIENESSIENESSIE was a European research project funded from 2000–2003 to identify secure cryptographic primitives. The project was comparable to the NIST AES process and the Japanese Government-sponsored CRYPTREC project, but with notable differences from both...
project releases final report / selections - August 2002, PGP Corporation formed, purchasing assets from NAI.
- 2003 - CRYPTRECCRYPTRECCRYPTREC is the Cryptography Research and Evaluation Committees set up by the Japanese Government to evaluate and recommend cryptographic techniques for government and industrial use...
project releases 2003 report / recommendations - 2004 - The hash MD5MD5The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm is a widely used cryptographic hash function that produces a 128-bit hash value. Specified in RFC 1321, MD5 has been employed in a wide variety of security applications, and is also commonly used to check data integrity...
is shown to be vulnerable to practical collision attack - 2004 - The first commercial quantum cryptographyQuantum cryptographyQuantum key distribution uses quantum mechanics to guarantee secure communication. It enables two parties to produce a shared random secret key known only to them, which can then be used to encrypt and decrypt messages...
system becomes available from id QuantiqueId Quantiqueid Quantique is a small company located in Geneva, Switzerland. It sells quantum key distribution systems, single photon counters, and physical random number generators...
. - 2005 - Potential for attacks on SHA1 demonstrated
- 2005 - Agents from the U.S. FBI demonstrate their ability to crack WEPWired Equivalent PrivacyWired Equivalent Privacy is a weak security algorithm for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. Introduced as part of the original 802.11 standard ratified in September 1999, its intention was to provide data confidentiality comparable to that of a traditional wired network...
using publicly available tools - May 1, 2007 - Users swamp Digg.comDiggDigg is a social news website. Prior to Digg v4, its cornerstone function consisted of letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. Digg's popularity prompted the creation of copycat social networking sites with story submission and voting systems...
with copies of a 128-bit keyKey (cryptography)In cryptography, a key is a piece of information that determines the functional output of a cryptographic algorithm or cipher. Without a key, the algorithm would produce no useful result. In encryption, a key specifies the particular transformation of plaintext into ciphertext, or vice versa...
to the AACSAdvanced Access Content SystemThe Advanced Access Content System is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management, intended to restrict access to and copying of the "next generation" of optical discs and DVDs. The specification was publicly released in April 2005 and the standard has been adopted as the...
system used to protect HD DVDHD DVDHD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
and Blu-ray video discs. The user revoltAACS encryption key controversyA controversy surrounding the AACS cryptographic key arose in April 2007 when the Motion Picture Association of America and the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC began issuing demand letters to websites publishing a 128-bit number, represented in hexadecimal as 09 F9 11...
was a response to Digg's decision, subsequently reversed, to remove the keys, per demands from the motion picture industry that cited the U.S. DMCA anti-circumvention provisions. - November 2, 2007 -- NIST hash function competitionNIST hash function competitionThe NIST hash function competition is an open competition held by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology for a new SHA-3 function to replace the older SHA-1 and SHA-2, which was formally announced in the Federal Register on November 2, 2007...
announced. - 2010 - The master key for High-bandwidth Digital Content ProtectionHigh-Bandwidth Digital Content ProtectionHigh-bandwidth Digital Content Protection is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections...
(HDCP) and the private signing key for the Sony PlayStation 3PlayStation 3The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
game console are recovered and published using separate cryptoanalytic attacks. PGP Corp. is acquired by SymantecSymantecSymantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
. - 2012 - NIST hash function competition winner to be selected.
- 2015 - Year by which NIST suggests that 80-bit keys be phased out.